Acer Chromebook R 11 can run Android apps on Chrome OS

Chromebooks laptops are both light weight physically and technically. They are powered by Google’s Chrome OS which provides long battery life and ease of use. One thing they didn’t offer until recently was access to the Google Play store and the ability to run Android apps. The Acer Chromebook R 11 is one of a select few that can do this. The R 11 features an 11.6″ touchscreen display with a 360° hinge that converts the clamshell laptop into a tablet for $299.99.

So what do you think? Does the ability to run Android apps on Chromebooks like the Acer R 11 make them an attractive computing platform, or does the price make you want to just buy an inexpensive Windows laptop and call it a day?

Google should totally merge the ChromeOS and AndroidOS instead of having ChromeOS supporting Android Apps. It’s pointless to have separate operating systems that does almost the same functionalities. It’s like Windows having WinRT back in the day. Both ChromeOS and AndroidOS has their own disadvantages but merging it together actually will make it run great!

I’ve got one. I’ve been in the beta channel running Android apps for a couple months. It works, mostly. The really big thing that makes this thing more useful though is Crouton running the user side of Ubuntu. But that’s mostly because I do programming with it. If I needed other things most Android apps are not geared toward the same types of broad capabilities that Windows apps are. For example a utility photo editor that makes it easy to just resize images for upload is apparently non-existent, but everything has color-manipulation filters.

The screen’s great. CPU performance seems good enough. Sound reproduction is better than I’d expect (I’m not using headphones all the time if I have some privacy). The battery life new is a pretty good 12 hours or something, I leave my charger at home. The “Pallette” orientation works great for on bed or similar web browsing. Flick and multi touch gestures work to make browsing work without needing to hit the buttons with touch (unless you want to close a tab).
Touch works, but the UI isn’t always big enough for it. There’s something mechanical in the hinge detection that gets hosed temporarily if you grip it by the ridge between the hinge points so you have to baby that if you want the software to know it’s in tablet mode(enabling software keyboard and screen rotation). It’s uncomfortably heavy for holding up for hours of reading. Still, it’s lighter than the textbooks I intended it to replace.

I have been lucky enough to own one before they released this option last june. I really love it. First, I have d one with 4GB Ram so things may be faster than the 2gb ram one. The google play options makes the chromebook much better for other stuff like studying or what. It runs the Microsoft apps okay. The big pdf files may lag a little. The chromebook is good enough for browsing already. So the good thing is you get to play games on it – much like a big phone. Also, d battery holds up extremely well. Full charged and on low light, it would last you a whole 8hrs just typing and reading stuff on it. Videos on flv format can be watched by downloading the correct app player available for free on google play. It looks good too. Metal casing and all.

The whole adding Android apps to ChromeOS is intriguing and could potentially be very useful. However, I currently enjoy the simplicity and inherent security that ChomeOS provides. Bringing Android into the mix opens up a huge can of worms on both fronts. Time will tell if they can execute this properly, but for now I’m just going to enjoy things the way they are and keep an eye out for a more fleshed out product before I sign up.

I'm currently working on a review of the Fitbit Charge 2. The Charge 2 is an updated version of the Fitbit Charge HR that I reviewed last year. It combines the smaller sized wrist wearable looks with the features of the Fitbit Surge. Stay tuned for my review coming soon.